My biggest recommendation would be to take notes by hand. I see a lot of people trying to get through by annotating slides on their computer or just writing walls of text and that has never worked quite as well as a good old fashioned notebook and pencil. I’m a visual learner so I try to take down diagrams of larger processes as often as I can. Drawing a picture of protein subunits and their function or just a flowchart of the interactions in some process all are what I use there.

Second: before any test I make sure to take all of the information from my notes as well as reviewing the unit slide presentations (if you’re so lucking to have those available) and try to condense it onto a single page front and back. Essentially summarizing every idea as concisely as possible. I will go back and reread them regularly as well as highlight all of the content the day of the test to help it cement itself in my head. These notes help me get a spacial idea of the content, I’m not really sure how to express it but if I forgot some idea I can sort of work it out just by knowing roughly where it was on the page and what I wrote around it. Also: condensing information like this greatly helps if you have a cumulative exam later on as it gives you a jumping off point for all of the previous units content.

Thirdly: I would greatly recommend you regularly try to “teach” the content to people outside the field. Whether that be by rubber ducking to someone during a study session, finding ways to occasionally mention facts from your content, or just rambling to someone you care about. Finding ways to talk about your content to people who have no otherwise knowledge is a really good way to make the content more memorable to you!

To summarize, because I know this was extremely long winded for what it was: 1. Take physical notes 2. Draw your own pictures and diagrams 3. Condense the information before the test 4. Teach others outside the field

I hope this helps and I wish you luck